April 15, 2024
Staff Report
LAHORE:
The UN experts express alarm at the continuing lack of protection for young women and girls belonging to minority communities in Pakistan.
The statement, issued on April 11, 2024, said that Christian and Hindu girls continue to remain vulnerable to forced religious conversion, abduction, trafficking, child, early and forced marriage, domestic servitude and sexual violence. “The exposure of young women and girls belonging to religious minority communities to such heinous human rights violations and the impunity of such crimes can no longer be tolerated or justified,” it reads.
The statement is based on the report filed by a team of special rapporteurs on forms of slavery, freedom of religion or belief, sale and sexual exploitation of children, trafficking in persons and violence against women and girls. These special rapporteurs are part of the special procedures of the Human Rights Council.
They cite conversion and forced marriage cases of Mehwish Patras, Chashman Kanwal, Zarvia Pervaiz, and Saba Nadeem. These girls were reported to be as young as 13 years of age when their cases were brought to public attention.
Highlighting the legislative and judicial failures to protect the vulnerable underage girls, they underline that early and forced marriage cannot be justified on religious or cultural grounds, “…under international law, consent is irrelevant when the victim is a child under the age of 18.”
The team of special rapporteurs express concern that forced marriages and religious conversions of girls from religious minorities which have been coerced are validated by the courts, often invoking religious law to justify keeping victims with their abductors rather than allowing them to return them to their parents – and “perpetrators often escape accountability, with police dismissing crimes under the guise of ‘love marriages’.”
They further acknowledged that a woman’s right to choose a spouse and freely enter into marriage is central to her life, dignity and equality as a human being and must be protected and upheld by law.
Experts stressed the need for provisions to invalidate, annul or dissolve marriages contracted under duress, with due consideration for the women and girls concerned, and to ensure access to justice, remedy, protection and adequate assistance for victims – “The Pakistani authorities must enact and rigorously enforce laws to ensure that marriages are contracted only with the free and full consent of the intended spouses, irrespective of their religion and belief, and the minimum age for marriage is raised to 18.”
They urge Pakistan to bring perpetrators to justice, enforce existing legal protections against child, early and forced marriage, abduction and trafficking of minority girls, and uphold the country’s international human rights obligations.
The UN has been persistent in demanding Pakistan to take immediate steps to curtail the practice forced conversions and marriages of young girls from religious minorities in Pakistan. It has long been urging the Pakistan government to investigate such acts in line with domestic legislation and international human rights commitments to hold perpetrators accountable.
In the fact finding report filed on October 26, 2022, the experts stated concern regarding the apparent non-application of relevant provisions of the Pakistan Penal Code and regretted the failure of the parliament of Pakistan to adopt further legislation that would specifically address the issue of forced conversion and marriage impacting minority women and girls.